Posted on 03/12/2010 2:45:39 PM PST by pissant
Sen. Jim DeMint is making a bid to be the tea party movement’s best friend in Washington. It’s hardly a coincidence that the South Carolina Republican finds himself with few friends in his own workplace.
DeMint — ideological warrior, cable TV regular, possible 2012 presidential candidate — is trying to channel the anti-establishment passions roiling the conservative movement while serving in the U.S. Senate, which even in a more raffish age of politics still counts as the most establishmentarian institution in American life.
Examples of his senatorial poor form keep growing. DeMint has refused to endorse some of his fellow Republican senators facing intraparty challenges from the right. He openly backs some candidates opposed by his party’s Senate leadership. And he is unabashed in announcing that the best way to win influence in the Senate is not by making friends and patiently massaging the legislative process but by exerting public pressure from activists and the media to bear on his colleagues.
Not surprisingly, his colleagues don’t especially like it. Many GOP senators privately scoff at DeMint as a showboating opportunist and a pain in certain parts of the anatomy. Even in on-the-record interviews, some Republican senators said that DeMint does not appreciate the need for a successful party to widen its ideological and geographic base beyond the deeply conservative Southern state he represents.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
I liked Fred and Palin until they came out to support Juan McCain.
Don’t you bend, DeMint!
DeMint 2012!
If South Carolina is deeply Conservative, how should we explain Lindsey Graham?
Does South Carolina have a large gay population? Just asking.
Just Republicans comming out for a fellow Republican. I don’t for a minute think there politics mimic McLame.......
When Juan loses the Primary they will endorse the Republican canidate...
DeMint for President.
Politico seems to have several articles per day pitting Republicans against one another.
Fred Thompson and John McCain have been friends for a long time. Fred basically ran interference for McCain in the 2008 primaries.
Jim DeMint is one of the few Republican senators that I support with my contributions. I also intend to support whoever runs in the next GOP primary against Missy Gramnesty. Would that be in 2012 or do we have to wait until 2014 to get rid of that RINO?
Exactly right.
Poor form from whose point of view? Politico's? And it's politico that claims anonymous Republican senators are mad at him. Who, for instance? Maybe Lindsay Graham. But it's not as if they need any facts for this kind of article.
As one of the 522 votes cast for Hunter in Maryland’s 2008 Republican primary, let me tell you, you’re dreaming.
Gramnesty is up for election in 2014. We can send Lindsey a message by supporting JD Hayworth against his mentor, McCain, in the primary.
I won’t be dreaming. I will be working my arse off to see it happen.
See post #12. That might rule out DeMint too.
Exactly! This isn't reporting at all. "Privately" other GOP Senators say....yeah right Johnny. You are saying it. It is what you want every elected Republican to say about DeMint. It is what you want every grass roots conservative to believe about elected Republicans.
I can’t either-wouldn’t it be refreshing if he doesn’t have a downside? That’s asking the impossible, but why not?
How about DeMint/Hunter 2012?
Politico tries to drive a wedge by prevaricating
Open primary that allows dems to cross over, and a fear of giving the dems too much of a lead in the senate. I didn’t vote for the prick, but the general concensus was better a rino than a dem. Kind of like voting for Mclame over the great zero. What’s a mother to do?
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